Aesthethica

Having studied guitar-massing minimalist composers and metalgaze bands alike, Brooklyn's former one-man black-metal art project composes an album deemed one of 2011's best by critics everywhere from Spin to Pitchfork to the New York Times. Quite an accomplishment, given that its gradually evolving repetitive clangor isn't all that far from the backing tracks on Lou Reed and Metallica's Lulu. Except here you've got intermittent yaaaargh-ing on top, plus chiming tintinnabulation, swirling light, token doom ("Veins of God") and neo-primitive chanting that almost does sound liturgical.